Review: May December

Image courtesy of Netflix.

In scene after scene of Todd Haynes' new film, "May December," we overhear or spot groups of people walking the streets of Savannah, Georgia - where the film is set - as they listen to guides on what appear to be ghost tours. The guides provide commentary about something horrible that happened in the past on the spot where the group happens to be standing. As long as they are bystanders and not participants, people love to hear grim stories about dramatic incidents or tragedies.

This minor element of the film is a great microcosm for the story of "May December," which concerns an actress named Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) who travels to Savannah to spend a few days with a woman named Gracie (Julianne Moore), who was some years ago the subject of much tabloid scandal when she had an affair with a seventh grade boy named Joe. 

As an adult, Joe (Charles Melton) is a beefy but silent type who fathered a child - and then several more afterward - with Gracie and is now married to her. Elizabeth has invaded their domicile to study Gracie so that she can portray her in an indie movie that tells the salacious story of her relationship with the boy, which began in a pet shop.

Much like two of Haynes' best films - "Far from Heaven" and "Carol" - his latest is a Sirkean melodrama that relies heavily on some of the tropes you might expect: overly dramatic music, line readings that occasionally border on the absurd, and passions that run high. Early in the film, Gracie stares blankly into a refrigerator and mumbles that she doesn't know whether there will be enough hot dogs for a cookout that she's hosting and the accompanying music might make you believe you have stumbled into a horror movie.

At first, Elizabeth's research into Gracie and Joe seems innocuous. She asks the types of questions you'd expect and she pays a visit to a few other people affected by the incidents of the past - Gracie's lawyer, her ex-husband, and the son from her first marriage, the somewhat hostile Georgie (Cory Michael Smith), who appears to be trouble.

While Gracie, based on her past behavior, would likely be pegged as a predator, she's seemingly accepted by her community, although at times her outwardly friendly persona seems to crack. On the other hand, our perception of Elizabeth begins to change during the course of the film. There's an uncomfortable scene in which she discusses what it takes to be an actress with a group of high school students and one student - a boy, of course - decides to be a class clown and asks what it's like to be in sex scenes while making movies. The detail to which Elizabeth describes her experience to the class of students is unsettling.

As she attempts to get into character, Elizabeth digs a little deeper than she should with her subjects, especially Joe, who starts to question more and more throughout the course of the film why people look at him like he's a victim and whether he actually is one. During one scene in which Elizabeth takes matters too far with Joe, she responds that physical intimacy is just something that adults do, driving home the fact that the woman with whom he shares his life was the only adult in the equation at the time of their first dalliance, and that Elizabeth is willing to also take advantage of him.

Elizabeth also finds out some unsettling news about Gracie's upbringing through Georgie, but this is then called into question during a final, somewhat mystifying sequence at a graduation. "May December" is the type of film that feels as if it's continually pulling the rug out from under our feet. How the viewer feels about any of the characters or their relationships is up to them. This is not a film of easy answers.

Haynes is among the top echelon of current American filmmakers and he boasts an impressive resume - "Far from Heaven," "Carol," "Safe," the superb "Mildred Pierce" miniseries, and "I'm Not There," which is, for my money, probably the greatest music biopic I've seen. "May December" might not be quite on par with those films, but it's a solid entry into the director's oeuvre that utilizes some of his trademark stylistic touches - female lead characters, melodramatic aspects, stories about secrets bubbling to the surface - and will no doubt leave an impression. It's a film that leaves much to chew on after it's over, which to me is always a high mark of praise for any movie.